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Calendar year, report cards and lesson plans

I am trying to plan our upcoming year and I would really like to do a year round schedule. I am still doing 180 days of school instruction so I counted up all the week days in each month and went back and took out a week for Thanksgiving (we have family coming in), 2 weeks for Christmas/New Year, 1 week for Easter, Memorial Day, Veteran's Day and each of the kids' birthdays. We are also taking the whole month of July off since that is when Dh gets block leave and we will be visiting family and going to Italy. We are starting this year at the end of August, ending at the end of June and then starting back in early August.

I still have 15 days to play with and have no idea what to do with them. I figure maybe I could use them for days if the kids are sick or for days when something comes up. And, if we don't use them I can take them off of the end of June? Does this sound like it will work?

Also, I am trying to plan out when I will do grades. This year I really didn't put a lot of emphasis on grades but this year and each year forward I want to have a grade card so that wherever we go if someone wants to see it I have it. I plan to do grades at the end of October, January, April and final grade card in June.

When it comes to lesson plans how do you plan them. Do you do an entire year at a time? That is what I have been doing and it is overwhelming. I am wondering if I should do a few weeks at a time instead. That way I can account for the unexpected days off should we need any.

I am trying to make this as simple as possible but seem to end up giving myself a headache lol. Any helpful advice?

hi 101wife, i dont follow days or do grades but i do make lesson plans and i make them a week at a time, so every friday or saturday i sit down and make up a lesson plan for the next week, for me thats easy and simple! if i did it any longer it would be confusing to me(cuz i'd probably be changing them!)

LOL yeah. I am still in the figuring out things phase. This past year was our first full year of HS. This year we didn't do many schedules or worry about grades as much since they really needed some time to decompress. But, since we are a military family and live in many different States I want to make sure that no matter where we live if someone asks to see records or whatever that I am prepared.

I do think that lesson plans a week or 2 at a time would work better than trying to plan out the entire year.

Quoting oredeb:

wow! thats a lot of thinking and figuring!

hi 101wife, i dont follow days or do grades but i do make lesson plans and i make them a week at a time, so every friday or saturday i sit down and make up a lesson plan for the next week, for me thats easy and simple! if i did it any longer it would be confusing to me(cuz i'd probably be changing them!)

I am doing lesson plans a month at a time to start with. I know if I do more I will get overwhelmed and if I do less I will get busy and then have to scramble to get it done. I am not going to do grades for elementary levels. I think having extra days isn't a bad plan. That way if stuff comes up during the year you will have extra time to take off, or if the kids need to work longer on something it won't mess up your schedule.

I would love to be more relaxed but with never knowing what State we are going to live in I need to be prepared for their home schooling laws. I want to make sure if anyone asks for their records I have them.

I will have a sophmore who is doing K12, two 7th graders and a kindergartener. I don't have to worry about the oldests grades since they keep track of all of that for me, and my kindergartener I will just do the :) or :( for grades...but for my 7th graders I do plan to keep track of grades by their test scores.

I plan a few weeks at a time. That way we can be more flexible. You also want to take into account "bad" days. You may need a day or two to go over something. You may need to take a day off because the kids are burnt out or you are burnt out.

I did a years worth of goals (which I am sure will be adjusted). I took each subject and listed what I want each kid to learn or cover for each subject for the year. Then, so far I have only started with history...so I took our curriculum and just started planning lessons, but not dates. I figure if we cover one lesson a week, ok, if we do two or more than great, either way they are flexible...I plan to put them into my lesson plan book a week at a time. If we don't finish something, I can move it to the next week.

I think your plan for days sounds good, use your extra days if your sick or if something comes up, or if you all just need a day off. And doing your grading in those months sounds good too. I'm not planning on counting my days or grading, but if I had to I think I would have something very similar to yours.

With our curriculum that we are using it is set up so that each marking period is 6 weeks long. I plan on doing 6 weeks on and 1 week off. So, I guess I plan 6 weeks at a time and factor field trips in b/c those I plan out at least 8 weeks.

I write lesson plans weekly (every Friday night). If I tried to plan out any more in advance, I would run the risk of having to redo everything if we, say, run into a roadblock that needs to be worked through, or if a kiddo breezes through everything, not needing the review I had planned the next week, etc.

I am a Home Schooling, Vaccinating, Non spanking, Nightmare Cuddling, Dessert Giving, Bedtime Kissing, Book Reading, Stay at Home Mom. I believe in the benefit of organized after school activities and nosy, involved parents. I believe in spoiling my children. I believe that I have seen the village and I do not want it anywhere near my children. Now for the controversial stuff: we have traditional gender roles, we're Catholic, I'm Libertarian, he's Republican, we're both conservative, and we own guns (now there's no need to ask, lol). Aimee

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